


Space Between

by larklure



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Communication, M/M, angsty fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 02:51:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8428582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/larklure/pseuds/larklure
Summary: This is my first excursion into Voltron fiction, and fan fiction itself for that matter. Here is my take on the first of many important Keith and Shiro conversations regarding the universe, and their relationship, and nothing a great consequence at all.





	

There was a distinct scent to space. More correctly, to the cabin air which Keith breathed and would probably breathe for the rest of his foreseeable life. It was a metallic scent, so much like canned peaches, or a nose bleed. But it was clinical, matter of fact. It kept them alive.

But for Keith, who before joining voltron thought little about the air he breathed, the scent was that of space. The real space, the open black exterior of the castle ship. Shiro’s dreams had made space seem like magic, so much more than what it was. For Shiro, space was as much magical as it was physical. Alien skies where violet and green, gas clouds where like the oceans of the galaxy, and stars shone like an abundance of fireflies. 

Keith’s space, the real space, was black, quiet and cold. It exist almost to spite Shiro's dreams, the dreams of a boy who by all rights no longer existed. The Shiro that looked at Keith now was hardened, almost brittle, and little seemed to be the same as the days back at the Garrison. There was a razor edge that hadn’t been there before, one that sat below the surface. Often it had cut Keith almost without either of them noticing.

To deal with the emotional wounds which Keith hadn’t entirely acknowledged until they threatened to well up around him, he had retreated to the only place he knew he could be truly alone. And he was. The observation deck’s glass was quiet and clean, and what little stars that shone outside offered little conversation. For that small blessing Keith was thankful. Sometimes he needed his body to move until his breath ran ragged. Other times, he needed this.

 

The quiet lasted little more than an hour before soft footsteps announced Keith’s discovery. The atmosphere remained quiet on the deck. Shiro stepped forward to rest against the thin railing, his prosthetic arm, a point of topic which had begun to sour between the two paladins, scraped softly against the polished Altean metal.  
The air was heavy.

 

“It took me awhile to find you. I didn’t know the castle had one of these” Shiro said to the unreflective glass. Keith’s heart lurched around in his chest, as it had done so for more time than he cared to dwell on. Keith had stopped reading into it a long time ago. It was simply fact at this point. 

“Yeah, Allura showed me this place one day. I think she knew I needed a place to go where I could be alone.”  
Shiro’s shoulders, which Keith caught out of the corner of his eye, straightened visibly. 

“Oh, well I can just-” he began to make a quick escape, his feet movingly almost soundlessly.

“No, that’s not-” Keith grasped for Shiro, his hand closing around the other’s prosthetic wrist. Keith dropped it the moment he remembered himself. “I was only telling you why I know about this place.”

Shiro looked as though he was still considering fleeing the room anyways.  
“Stay a bit?” Keith asked. 

 

They turned back to the open window. The view was diminished slightly by the curvature of the castle’s flank, its broad white metal falling off and away from the window. Above its slope, the black velvet-like expanse stretched uninhibited for as far as Keith cared to imagine. 

“This anything like you hoped it would be?” Back before this, it was Shiro who cared the conversation. Keith had been angrier, quiet and unsure of why someone like Shiro was paying him such undivided attention. Now, it was almost as if the roles had switched.

“No.” Shiro replied, and then “yes, I’m not sure what I expected.”

 

A fair answer, one Keith would have given himself. But with the other paladin, Keith had learned it was never so simple.

“I had always thought that space would be so much...more, I guess. The old me had read too much science fiction novels. Seen too many old movies romanticizing all this.” Keith hoped he wasn’t reading too far into the bitterness that seemed to be in Shiro’s voice as he said this.  
“I guess I was wrong.”

 

“Maybe.” Keith replied, turning slightly so that he might catch Shiro’s eye, “but maybe we just haven’t seen enough of the universe yet.”

Shiro scoffed lightly but didn’t argue. Keith’s body inched slightly closer so that their shoulders just barely touched. He felt the tension spike along the line of Shiro’s back, but the other paladin didn’t move to restate the space between them.

“What makes you think there’s something else out there?” It wasn’t with a lingering bitterness that Shiro said this, as best as Keith could tell. Rather there was a curiosity there, a small fragment of the Shiro that Keith knew was still somewhere tucked away for safe keeping. 

“I don’t know. I guess we will never know until we see what the universe has to offer, all that it allows us to see.” Keith paused when he noticed Shiro watching him, the other’s mouth in a cautious almost smile. “Sorry, that was very pseudo-philosophical.”

Shiro chuckled, a low and almost startling sound, which caused Keith’s heart to spike once again. They moved closer still.  
“Whatever it was, it looked good on you.”

 

Both paladins seemed to realize what that meant, and looked to opposite sides of the softly lit room. Keith moved his hand to rest atop Shiro’s over the railing. The other hesitated a moment before lacing his metallic digits with Keith’s own.

“I guess we should wait and see what else the universe has to offer.” Shiro said once again to the window of stars and lightless black space. A smile opened across Keith’s face, and when he breathed in it was the lingering scent of Shiro that clung to the air.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading this! Leave comments below, and you can find me on tumblr at larklure.tumblr.com !!


End file.
